Friday, 1 September 2017

British McDonald’s Workers To Go On Strike: The Enduring Legacy of Corporate Greed and Political Irresponsibility

Today’s post reacts to the news that next week, in the UK,
workers will make history by staging a strike at two McDonald’s restaurants –
one in London and one in Cambridge. The first strike of its kind in McDonald’s
British history is a result of poor working conditions, the use of the infamous
‘zero-hour’ contracts, and a demand for an increase in the minimum wage paid to
McDonald’s employees. In this post this particular story will be used a vehicle
to cover an aspect that has almost become accepted in the mainstream media,
unfortunately, and that is the concept of austerity and its repulsive effects.
Whilst onlookers hope that the strike will see a revolution-of-sorts amongst
the fast-food industry with regards to working conditions, the reality it is
that the underlying causes of the grievances aired by the staff will remain
whatever the outcome of the strike, as the problem is a systemic problem.

These strikes, and the general
underlying sentiment of workers battling against the system for some
variant of equality (which, in itself, is an incredible sentiment), are the
direct consequence of the population being punished by the blight that is
austerity, with one of the key aspects to that assault – uncertainty – coming to
the fore on each and every instance; however, once we realise that uncertainty
is the precursor for much more serious problems, the effects of the Crisis
become unmistakable and undeniable. Uncertainty is a common factor faced by the
poor across the world, with that dynamic being increased
substantially since the Crisis and the resultant extraction of wealth took
place; whilst it has been argued that ‘uncertainty
is inextricably enmeshed with human existence’, uncertainty is often a
precursor to stress as a concept, which then has an overwhelming tendency to
form the onset of ‘physically
illness and psychiatric disorders in individuals of all age groups’.
Accepting these admittedly cursory statements for just one moment, it is clear
to see that ‘zero-hour’ contracts are the absolute demonstration of the
corporate creation of individual uncertainty, with the ensuing consequences
being of no great surprises whatsoever. University College London found earlier
this year that 25 year-olds on zero-hour contracts were 41% less likely to
report having good physical health, with those workers being one-and-a-half
times more likely to report having a mental health problem (with the concept of
one even being able to report a mental health problem being another
issue entirely). Despite calls
for managers and bosses to be more sensitive and vigilant to this increasing
rise in mental health deterioration, the problem is a persistent one, and there
is a simple reason for that.

Zero-hour contracts and low pay are symptoms of the wider assault of austerity, and that assault has
claimed many victims. It is no exaggeration to support the notion that what we
witness today is akin to a ‘mental health crisis’, with a 20%
increase in demand for mental health services recently being met with cuts
for those services across the board, including the redirection
of funds that were so proudly affirmed by the Prime Minister, only then to
be crudely taken away. The increase of these problems in relation to the biting
reality of austerity is incredibly charted by The Independent who describe how over 17,000 children were admitted to Accident & Emergency in 2013-14
alone, compared to just over 8,ooo in 2010, with what is labelled as ‘psychiatric
conditions’. Additionally, the Psychologists for Social Change
initiative, working under the ‘Psychologists Against Austerity’ banner suggest
that there are 5
specific ways in which austerity impacts upon mental health, with those
being: humiliation and shame (linked to the disgraceful
treatment of benefit claimants, particularly since the Crisis); fear and
distrust (the initiative discusses how the DWP have been reprimanded for their
manipulation of statistics to promote negative views about benefit claimants);
instability and insecurity (almost 700,000 workers are on zero-hour contracts);
isolation and loneliness (cuts to services have alienated the elderly and
vulnerable within society); and finally the feeling of being ‘trapped and
powerless’ against the incessant waves of governmentally-created policies
designed to force the public to pay for the crimes of the powerful. This
onslaught has resulted in the largest
annual spike in mortality rates in over 50 years in the U.K. – the correlation
between statistics like these and the onset of austerity is clear to see.

Yet, there is one particular element which deserves
attention in light of the forthcoming strikes in McDonald’s, and that is the ‘workfare’
initiative. Whilst ‘workfare’ as a concept and, dare one say an ideal has a long
history, its re-emergence in the post-Crisis era was to be expected. The Conservative-inspired
version is based on the concept of encouraging people into work by developing a
small carrot and large stick regime, with the small carrot being unsatisfactory
and low-paying jobs, and the large stick being a marked increase in the use of ‘sanctions’,
as well as a revolution
in how job-seeking benefits are administered and monitored. The reason this is
raised is because the government have struck deals with employers across the
country to be part of the workfare regime, although they have attempted
to make that register secret. Yet, we know that McDonald’s is a member of the regime, which stands
as just one example of the government creating a narrow avenue for the
vulnerable and those in need to be funnelled into a system that simply has no
consideration for their plight. Not only is this system inhuman, the government
are actively allocating psychologists to jobcentres to rate the claimant’s ‘attitude
to work’, with poorer attitudes becoming the basis for deciding whether one
should be entitled to benefits or sanctioned – a study by Durham
University found that unemployment is being ‘repackaged as a psychological
problem’, which results in a diversion of attention from the underlying causes
of the job market’s malaise and ‘any subsequent insecurities and inequalities
it produces’. The study argues that the focus on the psychological effect of
sanctions ignores
the unfairness and inappropriateness of sanctions, which is correct, but we
must also then state that those in receipt of job-seekers allowance or another
variant, who may then fail the requirements for that particular benefit, will
then be funnelled into disability-based benefits, if
they are lucky, which as a system has become systematically
punitive since the Crisis. The attribution by some of the concept of a ‘workfare
state’ is, unfortunately, an accurate representation today.

Ultimately, the justified strike that will take place in the
two McDonald’s restaurants next week are just a miniscule consequence of one of
the largest assaults in society that has been witnessed, and one that
continues. Seemingly, because we inhabit this era, this post-Crisis era is
often downplayed or contextualised in a certain manner in a way in which an era
like the one that hosted the Great Depression is not. Yet, if we really reflect
on what we are witnessing today, then this era is no better, and in all
likelihood will be remembered by history as being worse. This is because of
factors like in 2017, with the technological advances and apparent increase in
the distribution of wealth – which, although seems obvious has been debated and
critiqued greatly
– we are still seeing excessive increases in the rates of poverty,
homelessness, mental health problems and mortality, and that is just in the Western
World. Whilst the era of austerity will forever be a blight on the reputation
of all those who developed and support it (the Conservative party have rightly
had their reputations cemented for this), the Labour party’s (‘New’ or
otherwise) facilitation
of the Crisis must never be forgotten – there is one important element to take
from this understanding, and that is to focus on the division between the
political parties is simply too narrow a focus. The division between the powerful
and everyone else is perhaps the ultimate focus, and it is sorely lacking in
modern discourse.

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